Amoeba Contemplates COSMOS
I mean, who else can you think of that pronounced every single syllable of every single word so precisely that you could almost feel the spit on your face?
But here’s what’s strange--- I had to watch the first episode three times because for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how he came to his conclusions. It was like he…he was seeing the trees, the forest, the universe, the dandelion weed, and somehow I was on some road into the forest and just bypassed him.
You might have seen this one… the one on evolution. He starts out by explaining the concept of “artificial selection.” (not to be confused with insemination)
He explains this concept by showing examples of a Japanese Crab whose shell looks just like a Samurai Warrior because for centuries every time the Japanese fisherman would catch a crab with that ugly scowl on its face, he threw it back, (honoring some Samurai ancient battle) which is why the species survived and grew plentiful. Humans affected the end product because by our actions, we determined which crab survived. Humans, as we know with all the Europeans complaining about our corn, do this all the time...
Okay, I was with him so far.
Then he went into explaining “natural selection” the course that nature took on the evolutionary tree. He starts out with this wonderful statement, along with lots of pictures, of how everything on the earth evolved from a simple cell.
Okay, go for it Carl.
He goes on with trees….yes, we have much in common with trees, we are related to them, and I do believe he is right because you couldn’t get me out of one when I was a kid. And all this time I had been thinking that in my past life I must have been a squirrel.
Trees and humans have this wonderful symbiosis…we need their oxygen, they need our carbon dioxide. (Somebody tell Al.) Everything is just marvelous the way Gaia interacts with all of the universe and it was all developed by “natural selection.”
Hey, I’m with ya…I get it.
Carl then shows us the cell, then the amoeba, then the lamprey, the fish, the fish crawls up on shore, and then lays eggs…and somehow we go from there, to a funny looking dog, then a monkey, then Neanderthal Man, then our final destination---the human homo, as in sapien. (And Carl wisely picks out the shadow of a naked woman to represent our present state.)
This remarkable evolution was picked out by that highly intelligent and extremely calculating goddess of perfection …Nature, and all done in the last few seconds of December. (That’s how he explains our evolution, using a calendar.)
And then he mocks the concept of God, while sitting by a dandelion. You see, we silly humans don’t think that nature could have done this all by itself, we are just stupid…come along with Carl and he will show you!
He takes us into the atom, the DNA double helix, and shows this wonderful little cartoon blob inside the double helix that actually “picks” and puts DNA stuff in JUST the right places…but oops..Sometimes there is a mistake…that’s a mutation. (Remember, he calls it a mistake. Humans have mutated due to mistakes. That explains everything.)
Okay, I’ll buy that.
By this time, Carl is so excited by the whole unbelievable thing, the whole concept of the millions of cells in every living thing that expands out into the universe and all the common denominators, I’m dizzy from even thinking about it all…my hair is frizzing.
In the last scene he talks about how exciting it will be when man, who understands the concepts of how to manipulate the DNA of humans…just how wonderful it will be when we start manipulating genes and making superior humans! Just imagine the possibilities! He could hardly contain the euphoria fantasies on his face with this statement.
And this is where he lost me. Remember that old saying “If your friend jumps off the bridge and kills himself, are you going to follow him?”
This is where, in my nobody humble opinion, maybe the scientists should take a break, and go find some open heart surgery to watch. They should find something else to do, because they get so emotionally caught up in what they’ve discovered, and what it means to the universe (not to mention their pocketbooks and vacations in France) that they stop in the middle of the forest and say…”Okay, that’s solved, let’s go home now.”
Now---we all admit the atomic bomb was a sheer work of incredible genius. And we do know it help us win WWII. And yes, if we didn’t develop it, someone else probably would have.
Nevertheless, by “artificial selection” we have put the whole human race on red alert, having to listen to Homeland Security messages on the radio…”Be sure to keep a backpack for your whole family just in case.”
And I suppose you could make the argument that if we don’t start cloning American humans to be superior to the Chinese clones, we might be sorry.
Then again, some would say the Chinese don’t even need clones.
I wanted to ask Carl, knowing what a genius he was, (And lets face it, he was--by making science excitable again to the dumbed down masses after years of the NEA)--- just what gave him the idea that man could play “god” and be any good at it?
Do we not see all over the world the same old thing…again and again…the few rule the many? And do you think if the “few” got this cloning power they would “share” it with the many? How much would this cost?
Are we supposed to believe that the universities cloning projects, funded by big multi-national and governmental elites will use this knowledge for the good of all mankind?
And that goes to just the simple conquering diseases for a start.
If politicians can’t even educate our children properly, what makes you think they could decide who gets what genes?
But that point is mute to scientists. They just can’t help themselves, it’s the curiosity of it all, if other men use it for evil means, and it’s not their fault. Hey, they have to make a living, might as well be at something they love.
They have no choice due to all the “natural selective genes” Mother Nature gave them.
I’m more worried about a whole class of elite world politicians cloning themselves, and deciding who gets the expensive “cures” and the better “genes” thereby, making a whole race of slaves and masters, more than I am then getting killed by my summer nights getting hotter.
They are doing just fine without the science.
If this was a perfect world, then it might come in handy…like cloning humans to breathe dark matter…when we finally decide we need to leave.
But the scientists don’t see that…they just see the work. And they live for it. Cause and effect is only applied to science, not to reason. Then they hand their work over to the governments, and that’s not necessarily a good thing.
If you think about just how many things have to go right to make a human body work, or even a single cell, and you KNOW this (as the scientists do) but see no other explanation but well, it’s just happened that way…
Then you’ve never asked the question of why in the world the clitoris evolved outside the woman body. (There’s that mutation mistake again)
Mother Nature after all invented man according to Carl Sagan, and I’m thinking maybe God should erase Mother Nature and start over…or maybe that was the plan from the beginning, we are just getting to it.
Nobody’s Perfect; Yep, I’m still in the forest, Next to Mike LaSalle on the evolutionary scale, when it comes to this stuff, I’m an amoeba. If only Carl would have taught at my high school…
But then again, Carl did write a wonderful movie in CONTACT.
Nobody Knows; Bill Clinton was very involved with the whole DNA sequencing thing when it was going on. I remember him talking about cloning in one of his many speeches and he had that same Carl Sagan look on his face.
As far as we know, we might be seeing his clone.
Also… during the 1960’s, a group of top secular mathematicians reported;
“It is now discovered that favorable mutations are not only small but exceedingly rare, and the fortuitous combination of favorable mutations such as would be required for the production of even a fruit fly, let alone a man, is so much rarer still that the odds against it would be expressed by an improbability as great as a monkey provided with a typewriter would be changed to peck out the works of Shakespeare.”--- Still they stuck with putting evolution in all textbooks.
From: A Jealous God, Science Crusade Against Religion by Pamela R. Winnick. (excellent book)
Nobody Cares; Don’t get me wrong, we need as many scientists as we can get-- I just wish they’d think a little more about the after effects of their projects, you know---do the cons outweigh the pro’s? Stuff that they do in business every day. Remember, there is a whole world of elite population planners sponsored by corporations like the Rockefellers, and they think science is just the ticket for their utopian dreams.
Hmmmm...Still, designer pink eyes would be cool...